Pathi Saree Mandir

Pathi Saree Mandir is right on Avenue Road, specifically at numbers four and five in Sanjeevappalane. It’s directly opposite the Rice Memorial Street. If you know the area, you know how packed it gets. We have been here for a long time, selling all sorts of sarees. The shop is filled from floor to ceiling with fabric. We have racks and shelves everywhere. Most days, we are busy pulling down sarees for customers to look at. It’s a lot of folding work. My hands know the texture of the cloth without even looking. We don't have a big marketing team or anything like that. Word of mouth is how people find us. The lane is quite narrow, so it’s always a squeeze when people are walking past. We have a few old stools for customers to sit on while they pick out what they want. The lighting is okay, but we use these big tube lights to show the colors properly. Sometimes the power goes out and we have to use a small generator. It’s just part of life here. We open up early and stay until the market starts to quiet down. We drink a lot of coffee from the nearby stall. It keeps us going through the long afternoons. It’s a simple shop with a lot of history. We don't change things much because we like it this way.